Media Release

KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter warns that essential industries are being destroyed as a result of the high Australian interest rate, comparable to the rest of the world, driving up the AUD and believes a reduction is paramount if industries like manufacturing and farming are to survive.

Mr Katter said that agriculture industries across the country remain in dire straits because of the high interest rate and farmers are now at breaking point.

“This week we attended two crisis meetings. There were over 1000 people in Merredin in Western Australia and hundreds in Colac in Victoria.

“Next month, the crisis summit in north Queensland’s mid west will attract several hundreds of people.

“The people that are attending these crisis meetings are concerned about one thing; that grain in Western Australia, milk in Victoria and cattle in Queensland are all Australian agriculture industries that are dying because of high interest rates.

“We have almost no manufacturing, no agriculture and no mineral processing in this country.

“The closure of mineral processing in Australia, the sale of all the meat works, sugar mills, dairy producers and canneries to foreign organisations clearly indicates the unconscionable price paid for high interest rates and the high dollar policies of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and successive governments.

Mr Katter said, “The RBA is living in Alice in Wonderland.

“How anyone can continue to defend the policy that puts our interest rates 1000 per cent higher than anywhere else in the world?

“The RBA’s argument for the last 15 years has been commodity prices. This argument has been proven to be utterly spurious since the two indicator markers, iron ore and coal, dropped by half and the dollar rose by 20 per cent in the same year.

“Would somebody please inform the RBA that on planet Earth, they are not the Queen of Hearts, they are more like the carnivorous Cheshire Cat eating the Australian economy rather than forsaking their flawed economic fundamentalism”.

Mr Katter said that reducing interest rates would remain a key focus for KAP heading into the election.

“A key focus for us is bringing interest rates in line with other countries which are at 0.3 per cent.

“Reducing interest rates will result in the dollar moving back to where it was before Peter Costello started his stupidity, driving its value up compared to the American dollar from 70 cents to almost 90 cents,” Mr Katter said.